I was kind of hoping that this thread would never start, but it has, so I guess I’ll pitch in my opinion. I’m a little disappointed that it was my team members who started it, because I thought we agreed not to air our dirty laundry in public.
I’ll try to answer as many points as I can, since there are too many posts to quote.
To start, I’d like to clarify my (individual) point. Teams that learned from our design, through Youtube, alliance pairings, or word-of-mouth: that’s a good thing. It’s even better when you recognize your model as an inspiration. Of all the students who designed a flapping intake roller and a reverse-dumping basket, only one came up to me the entire tournament: Rick Tyler’s son. He had enough confidence not only to build a great robot (World finalist) but also to recognize the team(s) that helped 575 along - the model of a true engineer.
On the other hand, “screw-for-screw” copies are not good for Vex Robotics Competition. Regarding the Chinese/copying mentality - I do understand the perspective (I have some Chinese relatives myself), but that doesn’t mean I agree with it or that it is an admirable point of view. I do not think that this new system of mirroring is good for anybody in the Vex community - copiers or models. Copying doesn’t teach a thing about engineering; it just helps you win, and that’s not what competitive robotics is about. It is a pity that it has come to this - we would gladly explain to any team about the work that went into the 254A bot this year, but we couldn’t, especially at the larger tournaments like Pan-Pacific - because people would blindly copy the design! In the end, it seems to have made no difference, because despite hiding the robot in the pits (as somebody mentioned), Chinese photographers swarmed the field in eliminations to take action shots of the robot when we couldn’t prevent them.
SeaBanana - the honor system might apply in America (it definitely applies at our regional and in Northern California as a whole), but after what I saw at Dallas, I have serious doubts that it applies anywhere else.
GoFoBroke - we tried to hint to judges that we had the design in early October, and that we had gone to 9 tournaments since then. Unfortunately, it seems the two minutes they gave us to explain were not sufficient to separate 254A from the others.
Blake - we didn’t have to put random screws on our robot.
Here’s us in the Vanden/Fairfield queue. Our photographer forgot to filter the picture and it remained deep in our website for several months, until our admin discovered and took down the picture.
Here are some of the robots in Dallas semifinals.
The robot on the right was possibly “inspired” by us (or 1429, another widely-duplicated team). Discobots are a great team though, and evidently understood the basics of the design - they made numerous changes to the robot, and while it’s undoubtedly the same pivoting intake / backward dump, there’s no doubt that its their robot.
The robot on the left is the classic definition of a “screw-for-screw.” You can check the screws on the diagonal 2x2x35 rail if you want to verify it. There are literally no changes from our Fairfield design, although we found several flaws in it (the chained drive base was terrible - the chain caused way too much friction, making the robot crawl on its 6 motors. We changed it to a geared drive in early January). The most distinct feature is the chain on the sides of the intake, however. On 254A, the chain is attached to a post which holds the intake out of the firing path when the arm is raised. At first, I was impressed by the chain on the copy because it seemed like they understood its importance - but on closer inspection, I realized that there was nothing at the end of it, rendering it utterly useless. In the picture, you can see that the intake has flopped down and will interfere with the firing.
Cody -
Our FRC team had been planning for months to go to TNT '08 to visit the Pink Team, which happen to be our very good friends. A month before the tournament, our teacher noticed that TNT offered a Vex event as well and encouraged us to try it out - so I take offense at your characterization of us as a team that flies across the country to “steamroll small local regionals.” We are very proud to have won the Gracious Professionalism at that competition, since we lent parts to half the teams there. Our VRC team was offered the same opportunity this year, but I turned it down.
With regard to other local competitions this year, we have forfeited several (five?) qualifications and withdrawn from two local (= cheap) regionals, choosing instead to use our own summer job money to travel to larger out-of-state competitions.
To wrap up:
The current 254A is mostly graduating this year, so some of our other team members will be forming 254A 2011. The leadership of 254C and most of 254Z will be at the core of the group. Those students have told us that based on what they saw at Dallas, they will be taking precautions to ensure the same will not happen next year.
Currently, the plan is to blanket the entire robot with laminated logos. The design they are working on even takes these logos into account. Many mechanisms will be removed for travel competitions, and some might not even be shown before Dallas. If anything, the robot will be fully functional at the Bellarmine competition in late January.
I’d like to thank everybody who has shown their support to us throughout the year, and especially those on this forum. It is truly regrettable that we have had to implement these measures to stay competitive, but hopefully the current state of international competition will change.
On the bright side, 254A will look quite pretty in its blue logos throughout the season :).
John
